Off Tanking

In all this talk of augments and secondary archetypes, the tank archetype is brought up quite often. Can xxx/tank classes main tank or only off tank? And similar questions, which leads me to this:

What is the role of an Off Tank in Ashes, and what do you expect them to be capable of?

I am basically curious to see if most people agree on what Off Tanking is and how it ties into the class system in Ashes. A tank in MMOs in general have two things they must be able to do, which is 1. keep the enemies away from the other people in the group as much as possible, and 2. be able to survive long enough for the enemies to die first. That's it. Everything else is fluff.

An Off Tank, to me, is someone who can offload some of the pressure from the main tank. They typically have less damage mitigation than a main tank, but also have either higher DPS or higher self-healing than the main tank, and they have some sort of mechanic to hold the attention of enemies. They are often used to handle adds in boss fights.

In some games I have seen the term "Off Tanking" being used in raid situations, where one main tank takes the aggro from another main tank in order to survive a certain boss mechanic. To me that's just tank swapping, not off tanking.

For Ashes, I expect one of the four schools of augmentation from the secondary tank archetype to add threat generation to a skill. And another school of augmentation will add some damage mitigation to a skill, perhaps through temporarily lowering the damage output of the enemy.

In other words, I think xxx/tank classes can off tank with the right gear and spec.

Can off tanks or xxx/tanks function as main tanks in group content (8 people)? Yes and no. If the group is near the minimum level for the content and don't have really good gear, then no. I think a tank/xxx is needed. If the content is on farm and the group is well geared, then absolutely yes; I think the off tank can handle the group bosses and adds in most cases.

I don't expect them to be able to main tank in raid content (40 people). Nor do I want them to. I can see a well geared off tank handle some raid boss adds perhaps, but not easily. I want the choice to go tank/xxx to be meaningful. I want them to be better tanks than any other class in pretty much all situations.

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George_Black

Now start a dps topic.
And discuss whether tank/x, healer/x and bard/x are DPS. Off-dps?

Dygz

x/DPS is DPS.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

x/DPS is DPS.

*/DPS is *.

Sathrago

Im expecting the exact treatment for x/dps as x/tank gets. Same for x/healer. You're gonna be able to do it... just not as good. The dps/x classes will be better damage dealers. x/dps will have some tools but are subject to changes if they start to do the same amount of dps as a dps/x class.

Boanergese

So, is Healer/Healer a super healer.

understand-the-hierarchy-photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375

Azherae

Pretty amazed this thread is still going on but for the sake of it, might as well add my bit.

Offtanking is the act of activating a defensive ability from your class, usually from a class that has fewer of these, for a short term action to hold a certain set of enemies either because the main tank cannot due to their own ability timers or requirements... or because something about your class makes you the most efficient at doing so.

E.g. a Rogue/Tank that normally takes Mitigation style Augments to help the Tank/Cleric (for example) actually take less damage, also occasionally uses a threat move combined with some evasion buff to offtank against some enemy (usually an add or secondary boss with lower HP) that does large physical damage but has low accuracy, when the group's main tank is either not the evasion Tank (probably because of whatever the main target is), or their cooldowns for things like Ultimate Defense are down for some reason.

When the enemy is quickly killed efficiently without the maintank taking much damage, or when the Maintank has a strong mitigation ability back up, then the offtank stops, and probably, their strong defensive ability wore off anyway. The healer tops them up with a Regen or something since they aren't taking damage anymore, and efficiency is achieved.

This isn't the same as having a secondary tank, and often, in this situation, a secondary tank is overkill. Often needed in quick runs through dynamic content.

Depending on the length of the fight, and the timers on abilities, the offtank may do this sort of thing multiple times per fight, in a rhythm that is usually discussed beforehand with the main tank.

SirChancelot

George_Black wrote: »

Now start a dps topic.
And discuss whether tank/x, healer/x and bard/x are DPS. Off-dps?

Cleric/ rogue
Death school stuff from cleric
Shadowy stuff from rogue
Sneaky dark debuff shadow disciple
Sounds edgy

Cleric/fighter
Where's ironhope to preach about his templar

Tank/fighter
Hell, I'd be 100% ok with people using a Knight as a template for a tank primary DPS build. Could play almost identical to a dreadnaught but use the tank line up of abilities. Could be a fun beefy bruiser in arenas

Azherae

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

Now start a dps topic.
And discuss whether tank/x, healer/x and bard/x are DPS. Off-dps?

Cleric/ rogue
Death school stuff from cleric
Shadowy stuff from rogue
Sneaky dark debuff shadow disciple
Sounds edgy

Cleric/fighter
Where's ironhope to preach about his templar

Tank/fighter
Hell, I'd be 100% ok with people using a Knight as a template for a tank primary DPS build. Could play almost identical to a dreadnaught but use the tank line up of abilities. Could be a fun beefy bruiser in arenas

I intend for my two daggers to have at least two edges each, so it lines up.

George_Black

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

SirChancelot

George_Black wrote: »

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

My 'world view' is full acknowledgement that cleric/rogue is different from a rogue/cleric...
But both could be played as different styles of DPS.

I'm more confused on how you hear cleric/rogue and don't mentally picture something that is more damage dealing oriented.

Serious though, that reeks of a shadow priest style character.

George_Black

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

My 'world view' is full acknowledgement that cleric/rogue is different from a rogue/cleric...
But both could be played as different styles of DPS.

I'm more confused on how you hear cleric/rogue and don't mentally picture something that is more damage dealing oriented.

Serious though, that reeks of a shadow priest style character.

Dude stop it.

Tank/x, healer/x, bard/x cant beat DPSmain/x in a pure PvE scenario that requires high DamagePerSecond.

You say cleric/rogue is a dps? Would the cleric/rogue take a dps spot over:
Fighter/rogue
Rogue/rogue
Ranger/rogue
Mage/rogue?

Sure, your cleric/rogue will have it's usefulness in the OVERALL game of AoC, but we are talking about high DPS. Not burst, not sustain, not accessory to the group. DPS.

I shouldnt be surprised that people speak so looselly about archetypes and classes, or the scenario for which a group is formed...
After all, the topic was off-tank, the gameplay design of off-tanking, yet half the people started talking about the viability of x/tank to be the main tank of the group in a topic discussing the need to HELP THE MAIN TANK, in other words, the main tank STRUGGLES. (off-tanking.....)
And the other half took the bait, responding that a tank/x in a raid situation will /partykick any x/tank for the role of main tank (which isnt the topic.. off-tanking).
Just like dps/x will /partykick any tank/dps, healer/dps, bard/dps for the role of pure, high DPS.

SirChancelot

George_Black wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

My 'world view' is full acknowledgement that cleric/rogue is different from a rogue/cleric...
But both could be played as different styles of DPS.

I'm more confused on how you hear cleric/rogue and don't mentally picture something that is more damage dealing oriented.

Serious though, that reeks of a shadow priest style character.

Dude stop it.

Tank/x, healer/x, bard/x cant beat DPSmain/x in a pure PvE scenario that requires high DamagePerSecond.

You say cleric/rogue is a dps? Would the cleric/rogue take a dps spot over:
Fighter/rogue
Rogue/rogue
Ranger/rogue
Mage/rogue?

Sure, your cleric/rogue will have it's usefulness in the OVERALL game of AoC, but we are talking about high DPS. Not burst, not sustain, not accessory to the group. DPS.

I shouldnt be surprised that people speak so looselly about archetypes and classes, or the scenario for which a group is formed...
After all, the topic was off-tank, the gameplay design of off-tanking, yet half the people started talking about the viability of x/tank to be the main tank of the group in a topic discussing the need to HELP THE MAIN TANK, in other words, the main tank STRUGGLES. (off-tanking.....)
And the other half took the bait, responding that a tank/x in a raid situation will /partykick any x/tank for the role of main tank (which isnt the topic.. off-tanking).
Just like dps/x will /partykick any tank/dps, healer/dps, bard/dps for the role of pure, high DPS.

If the cleric/rogue is fully built to be a DPS.
All active skills deal damage.
All skill points geared towards bringing DMG
All gear stats are for DPS
That should be a DPS character.

If a player builds his character to be a DPS, then yes, that should be a DPS.
That's what player choice means to me.

George_Black

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

My 'world view' is full acknowledgement that cleric/rogue is different from a rogue/cleric...
But both could be played as different styles of DPS.

I'm more confused on how you hear cleric/rogue and don't mentally picture something that is more damage dealing oriented.

Serious though, that reeks of a shadow priest style character.

Dude stop it.

Tank/x, healer/x, bard/x cant beat DPSmain/x in a pure PvE scenario that requires high DamagePerSecond.

You say cleric/rogue is a dps? Would the cleric/rogue take a dps spot over:
Fighter/rogue
Rogue/rogue
Ranger/rogue
Mage/rogue?

Sure, your cleric/rogue will have it's usefulness in the OVERALL game of AoC, but we are talking about high DPS. Not burst, not sustain, not accessory to the group. DPS.

I shouldnt be surprised that people speak so looselly about archetypes and classes, or the scenario for which a group is formed...
After all, the topic was off-tank, the gameplay design of off-tanking, yet half the people started talking about the viability of x/tank to be the main tank of the group in a topic discussing the need to HELP THE MAIN TANK, in other words, the main tank STRUGGLES. (off-tanking.....)
And the other half took the bait, responding that a tank/x in a raid situation will /partykick any x/tank for the role of main tank (which isnt the topic.. off-tanking).
Just like dps/x will /partykick any tank/dps, healer/dps, bard/dps for the role of pure, high DPS.

If the cleric/rogue is fully built to be a DPS.
All active skills deal damage.
All skill points geared towards bringing DMG
All gear stats are for DPS
That should be a DPS character.

If a player builds his character to be a DPS, then yes, that should be a DPS.
That's what player choice means to me.

What do you think the difference between mages and clerics skills should be?
Because you are talking crazy.

SirChancelot

George_Black wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

SirChancelot wrote: »

George_Black wrote: »

I cannot believe that I got serious responses regarding tank main, healer main, bard main being considered as DPS when there are main:
Fighter
Rogue
Ranger
Mage

I cannot believe your world views.

My 'world view' is full acknowledgement that cleric/rogue is different from a rogue/cleric...
But both could be played as different styles of DPS.

I'm more confused on how you hear cleric/rogue and don't mentally picture something that is more damage dealing oriented.

Serious though, that reeks of a shadow priest style character.

Dude stop it.

Tank/x, healer/x, bard/x cant beat DPSmain/x in a pure PvE scenario that requires high DamagePerSecond.

You say cleric/rogue is a dps? Would the cleric/rogue take a dps spot over:
Fighter/rogue
Rogue/rogue
Ranger/rogue
Mage/rogue?

Sure, your cleric/rogue will have it's usefulness in the OVERALL game of AoC, but we are talking about high DPS. Not burst, not sustain, not accessory to the group. DPS.

I shouldnt be surprised that people speak so looselly about archetypes and classes, or the scenario for which a group is formed...
After all, the topic was off-tank, the gameplay design of off-tanking, yet half the people started talking about the viability of x/tank to be the main tank of the group in a topic discussing the need to HELP THE MAIN TANK, in other words, the main tank STRUGGLES. (off-tanking.....)
And the other half took the bait, responding that a tank/x in a raid situation will /partykick any x/tank for the role of main tank (which isnt the topic.. off-tanking).
Just like dps/x will /partykick any tank/dps, healer/dps, bard/dps for the role of pure, high DPS.

If the cleric/rogue is fully built to be a DPS.
All active skills deal damage.
All skill points geared towards bringing DMG
All gear stats are for DPS
That should be a DPS character.

If a player builds his character to be a DPS, then yes, that should be a DPS.
That's what player choice means to me.

What do you think the difference between mages and clerics skills should be?
Because you are talking crazy.

Mages use elemental and spacial magic

Clerics have life and death, de/buff, probably more dot oriented, maybe a life drain approach

And all of that is in an un'augmented state.

You're the one sounding crazy to me...

George_Black

So you are saying that -even according to your theory- the dot and debuff based class (damage over tiiiiiimeeee....) will have high enough DPS, in order to compete with a mage?

You are saying that a cleric/mage will be as good as a.... let's say mage/cleric in order for both of them to fulfill the specific need of HIGH DPS?

Are you also saying that a mage/cleric will heal as good as a cleric/mage in a scenario that needs STRONG HEALING?

Because elemental and life/death will be just visuals ye?
Just a re-colouring of the same performance?

SirChancelot

George_Black wrote: »

So you are saying that -even according to your theory- the dot and debuff based class (damage over tiiiiiimeeee....) will have high enough DPS, in order to compete with a mage?

Can you reword this? Because the question I'm getting out of this is "why would I want a DoT character when a burst character exists?"
Which is basically the same as asking "Why would I want a fighter, I have a rogue"

George_Black wrote: »

You are saying that a cleric/mage will be as good as a.... let's say mage/cleric in order for both of them to fulfill the specific need of HIGH DPS?

Again, I agree they would be two totally different characters, playstyles, using very different abilities. But if they were both designed for being a DPS, then sure why not.
In wow terms, one is a mage one is a shadow priest. S.Priest isn't useless because a mage exists...

George_Black wrote: »

Are you also saying that a mage/cleric will heal as good as a cleric/mage in a scenario that needs STRONG HEALING?

I never said that, but it would be interesting to see how cleric augments work on a mage. ( Since we haven't gotten to play with it yet.)

In my 'world view' if the cleric/mage went full DPS with the desire to run as a DPS, then he probably won't be very good at healing. All of his skill points were put into offensive abilities instead of healing ones, and his passive choices were probably damage and crit chance instead of bonus healing and mana regen.

George_Black wrote: »

Because elemental and life/death will be just visuals ye?
Just a re-colouring of the same performance?

If you want to over simplify it like that, then yes. But that's also like you being able to claim that LITERALLY EVERY DAMAGE SPELL is just a visual difference.
😂😂😂
But, no... This is why I said one would probably be more of a

SirChancelot wrote: »

Mages use elemental and spacial magic

Clerics have life and death, de/buff, probably more dot oriented, maybe a life drain approach

And all of that is in an un'augmented state.

So mage full into mage wild be a bursty caster, where as a DPS cleric would be a debuff DoT style.

In WoW you could say one is an affliction lock, one is a destruction lock. Both are ranged casters, but different playstyles.

Honestly I don't understand your confusion...

George_Black

There are also people that claim they can play a heavy armor mage with a two handed sword.
What role would these people fill?
DPS, Tank? Healer?

The bottom of the line is that people need to understand that this is an mmo, and that classess fill absolute roles, even more so when talking about raiding.

A vast majority of people posting here or in discord basically say "I will build my character however I want and beat the game, as if I play a singleplayer like dark souls, completelly ignoring the fact that there are other players, more competitive, that will make meaningful choices and sacrifices thus creating effective builds"

Your dps cleric/mage will go as far as killing overland mobs, solo or in group until lv10 at most.
Then you can either be carried by friends, knowingly or not, that your spec isnt 100% effective for ANY task, or you will be left aside, return to the forums and complain about class balance, while in truth advocating for class homogenization.

Dygz

Ashes of Creation is not WoW. Ashes of Creation is not trying to be WoW.
Ashes classes are not designed like WoW. The Ashes devs are not going to try to balance the classes in the same manner that WoW devs balance WoW classes.

Again, Steven would say that Mage augments allow a Cleric Primary Archetype to move the dial closer to the Mage role and closer to the (magical) DPS Trinity spot... a little bit.
Don't expect a Cleric/Mage to be a better Mage than Mage/x. And...Cleric/Mage is also unlikely to be better at (magical) DPS than a Mage/x.

But, sure, Cleric/Mage could use Critical Hit gear and Passive Skills, like Critical Hit Rate, to maximize their DPS. Could be that a Py'Rai would have some Racial augments that would increase (magical) DPS...along with Mage DPS augments.
You could create what amounts to a DPS Cleric - just as you could create and Evasion Tank... but...
Still don't expect that Cleric/Mage to (magical) DPS better than a Mage/x.

(I think George Black is asking how a DoT is going to be better at DPS than burst damage.)

George_Black

No I wasnt asking anything.

Anyway, in PvP or even non raiding PvE, experimenting with builds (as long as you dont make a wand wielding heavy armor rogue/x) will be more forgiving than raiding, so let's finish this discussion and go back to off-tanking.

It really falls with the devs to create PvE scenarios that an off-tank is needed, to endure the damage, while also effectivelly returning to other duties, like dealing good dmg or supporting. It falls to the devs to create scenarios where more than 1 tank is needed, real tanks and scenarios, many scenarios that the off-tanks can bring in flavour. Meaningful. Different encounters should require an off-tank dps, different encounters for an off-tank support.

And in the open world it is up to the groups to find the best way to be effective at different tasks.

In L2 for example many times we would use our bard as the tank and our bases as the damage dealers. The bard would kite and provide support buffs and there would be NO NEED for a healer for that day.

Other times we'd go with melee AoE settup and drain-health buffs. Another example that the tank and healer could take a day off.

Other times we would raid, in which case my melee fighter would be just a bodyguard incase of PvP. The mages and archers would kill the RB faster than me.

Noaani

SirChancelot wrote: »

If the cleric/rogue is fully built to be a DPS.
All active skills deal damage.
All skill points geared towards bringing DMG
All gear stats are for DPS
That should be a DPS character.

If a player builds his character to be a DPS, then yes, that should be a DPS.
That's what player choice means to me.

If a player opts to do this, they will have half the DPS abilities that a DPS character would, and the half the number of abilities they have would each be less good than a DPS characters abilities.

Lets say I am a mage, and I take mage as my secondary. Each of my augments from my secondary are going to add damage to my abilities. Those abilities that I don't add augments to are still going to be damaging abilities, and will cost me fewer skill points.

Now, if I take cleric for a primary and still mage secondary, my abilities that I start off with are not damaging abilities (mostly). This means that if my mage augments are going to turn them in to abilities that are comparable to my mage/mage, the augments from my mage secondary need to be significantly better. They need to change my cleric abilities from healing or protection abilities over to DPS, and then ALSO need to boost that damage to match that of an ability that is dealing damage as it's base, and gaining damage as it's augment.

I know you can see how this isn't reasonable.

Even for a clerics abilities that do deal damage already, that damage will be less than half as much as a mages base damage (as is generally standard). In order to turn this cleric/mage in to a DPS class, that augment would need to add a ridiculous amount of damage to the ability.

What this would also then mean is that we would have clerics that take all the cleric heals (which they get for cheap), and then take a few cleric damage abilities, and augment the damage abilities with mage augments. It would mean we have clerics fully able to heal, that are able to dish out fairly substantial amounts of damage.

What you are talking about here is what you want to see, not what is reasonable or probable in Ashes - because what you are talking about is neither reasonable nor probable in Ashes.

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